Sox Owners Tell Their Side Of Story

June 23, 1988|By John Kass and Dan Egler.

After being called everything from the Gold Dust Twins to greedy carpetbaggers from the East, Chicago White Sox owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn broke a self-imposed silence Wednesday and told of their courtship by a Florida city known mainly for the advanced age of its residents.

With a little more than a week to go in the Illinois legislative session in Springfield, where the two hope to secure a $150 million government-subsidized stadium on the South Side to replace aging Comiskey Park, controlling general partners Reinsdorf and Einhorn sought a sympathetic public ear.

They found one on ``The Ryan Report,`` a television interview program hosted by Lt. Gov. George Ryan, scheduled to be broadcast on cable-access channels across the state until lawmakers decide next week whether to agree to the Sox request or help shove the team to a new home in St. Petersburg.

Ryan led off the program supporting the Sox position and likened government subsidies of major-league baseball to the state`s offering incentives to create jobs in Illinois. He also told viewers that former popular Sox owner Bill Veeck once tried to move the team to Denver.

The owners backed away from suggestions by State Sen. William Marovitz

(D., Chicago) that the team play in a West Side baseball park adjacent to a proposed Chicago Bears stadium. Bears President Michael McCaskey lobbied legislative leaders in Springfield Wednesday to convince them that twin stadiums would be counterproductive.

Senate Minority Leader James ``Pate`` Philip (R., Wood Dale), who once supported the concept, agreed with McCaskey after a meeting. In 1986, Philip succeeded in stopping a proposed Sox move to Addison in Du Page County.

Reinsdorf said political debate over new stadium configurations with so little time in the session might cause their South Side agreement to suffer in the legislature.

Reinsdorf stuck to his position that Comiskey Park could not be rehabilitated. He said he was informed by engineers studying the 78-year-old ballpark on behalf of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority that the structure could not be improved, and that it would have to be torn down or destroyed and completely rebuilt.

``Our first choice is to remain in Chicago,`` Reinsdorf said during the taping. ``But if the legislature acts unfavorably, then we`ll have to sit down and figure out what happens then.

``We have no desire to sell the team. Anybody who comes along and buys the Chicago White Sox franchise will have the same problem we`re going to have; in a couple years he`s not going to have a place to play. I don`t think we want to be driven out of the game under those circumstances.

``Plus, a buyer would have to pay our investors what the team is worth in Florida, which is a whole lot more than what it is worth in Chicago.``

During the session the Sox owners ticked off a litany of complaints and admitted their own mistakes through their four-year wait for city and state governments to help them find a new ballpark.

They criticized McCaskey for rejecting a plan that would have allowed them to play ball in a shared site at 18th Street and the Chicago River, because, they said, McCaskey has stated he would only share a facility with the Chicago Cubs.

Reinsdorf said Mayor Harold Washington told them the only site they could find would be the current proposed site immmediately south of Comiskey in the South Armour Square neighborhood, because, he said, Washington believed residents there could be moved with little political fallout.

And both men said the team, under former owner John Allyn, committed a critical error in removing Sox broadcasts from WGN-TV (Channel 9) for a contract with WFLD-TV (Channel 32).

They also attempted to defend themselves against charges that they have manipulated the emotions of Sox fans to leverage an agreement more lucrative than the one they signed with the city in 1986. Although lawmakers passed a $120 million stadium deal then, power struggles between Washington and Gov. James Thompson on who would control the authority stymied construction. St. Petersburg then began to court the Sox.

``We`ve hit a lot of nerves here,`` Einhorn said. ``It hasn`t been easy on Jerry and I, because we once were very popular. Now we`re very unpopular, and I like popular better. I once did two commercials in this town. I don`t think I could get any right now.``

Einhorn said he was shocked at fans` negative reaction to team hopes in 1986 to follow their fan base to Addison. The team wanted to repeat the success of the California Angels, which moved from Los Angeles to avoid competing with the Dodgers.

``The perception of baseball in Chicago has so long been this North Side- South Side competition,`` Einhorn said. ``From that day on we were kind of the villains in this city and, needless to say, we`re very upset about it. We didn`t want to be the villains. But we are.``